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This past Thanksgiving, I wrote about some very simple comforts I was thankful for. I began with this:
I am thankful for porta-johns. Indoor plumbing is an absolute blessing. Laundry detergent is a miracle. A clean bed and a pillow is Heaven. My wife is okay, too. And my kids deserve mention.
Maybe because I haven’t kept a gratitude journal, karmic forces—Hindu leprechauns or Buddhist fairies, possibly—seem to be testing my appreciation for modern conveniences. In “Crying at Hair Cuttery,” I wrote about how my wife Kelli and I lost electricity for two days during an Airbnb stay in Virginia at the end of May. Then, just over a week ago, we were without running water at our house for two days. Even worse, the water interruption was a self-inflicted wound.
It started one morning when Kelli couldn’t turn off the water after her shower. Since I always shower in the other bathroom, I had no idea what kind of abuse led to this initiating event, but I did know that I would have to spend some time on a repair. I was also pretty confident that I would be able to knock it out in a flash.
Having replaced shower valve cartridges twice in other houses, I had the procedure down pat:
Shut off water to the house.
Remove the faucet handle and defective valve cartridge.
Take the old valve cartridge to the hardware store and buy the correct replacement.
Buy tools that catch your eye as long as there is some possibility you might need them in the future.
Install new valve cartridge and reinstall handle.
Turn water supply back on and show everyone in the house how smoothly the handle turns to control the water with zero drips in the off position.
Unlike the other times I had performed this procedure, I had to remove the trim plate behind the handle in order to reach the valve cartridge. That was not difficult, but the cartridge refused to slide out. I torqued and pried and coaxed and cursed, but it wouldn’t budge. I went to the hardware store anyway and bought a replacement cartridge and a removal tool for that brand of shower valve. The new valve cartridge came with a plastic piece that slid over the valve stem and gripped the old cartridge so I could turn it back and forth a few times with a wrench to loosen the cartridge up for extraction. The plastic piece bent without budging the cartridge, so I pulled it off and gripped the cartridge directly with locking pliers. When the cartridge finally turned a couple of millimeters each way, I applied the cartridge removal tool according to the directions on the package. (It’s very rare for me to buy the right tool for the job, but when I do, I am above average at following the directions that come with it.)
The removal tool moved the stuck cartridge a fraction of an inch. The next turn broke the valve cartridge off with about two thirds of it still stuck inside of the valve housing—not a good feeling. For a moment, I felt like I might not be up to the job, but I steeled my resolve and informed my wife that there had been some complications during surgery, but the patient was still alive and in good hands. All I needed were three-inch self-tapping screws, some sort of epoxy with hardener, a blow torch, four wall-mountable pulleys, and a winch. I told her I would be back from the hardware store in somewhere between twenty minutes and six hours.
She paused Love Island USA and said, “We are calling a plumber.”
I reminded her of the time I fixed a sewage ejection pump with a $25 part and some unpleasant labor after the plumber gave me an estimate of $1600 for the repair. That one example, I said, proved that I should have my own DIY plumbing show. Celebrity DIY plumber might even be my missed calling and our ticket to fame and fortune. “Besides,” I said, “with a name like Hammer, I’d have instant handyman credibility.”
Kelli, who watches This Old House when she runs out of new episodes of reality murder or dating shows, was incredulous. “They already have a show called Two Chicks and a Hammer.”
“If I were on a show called Two Chicks and a Hammer,” I said, “It would be more like Love Island than This Old House.”
“I love you,” she replied, “but I trust you to complete this without injury to yourself or the house about as much as you trust Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon.” Unlike my Two Chicks and a Hammer joke, that one landed. Kelli handed me her phone with the plumber’s number already dialed. When they picked up, I explained how my wife had broken the shower and my attempt at making the repair had gone slightly awry.
On the morning after another 24 hours without running water, a plumber arrived sweating from the searing 65-degree North Dakota heat. He took a look at the problem and told me he would have to chisel out the rest of the valve cartridge. “I’ve had to do that with a bunch of these,” he said—and not just as a way to soothe my DIY ego. “It should be quick, but if the housing is marred, I might have to go in through the bedroom wall to replace it.”
That would be bad, I thought, though I did need practice patching drywall. When I gave Kelli a situation update, Belle-A (pronounced like Bella) from Hawaii was lounging by the Love Island USA swimming pool with some guy named Austin or Chad or Blake. I thought that I probably wouldn’t immediately kick Belle-A off of my Two Chicks and a Hammer show, but I kept that to myself. I did mention that people might have an easier time pronouncing my first name if I spelled it Trig-V, but then Elon Musk might see it and use it for one of his fifty future children.
I returned to the bathroom to check on the plumber. He was on his knees in the tub, finishing the repair. Sweat dripped from his nose onto the tub surface, which fascinated the cat watching him from the toilet seat. He sent me to the basement to turn the water back on. When I returned, he asked me to turn the valve handle. “Feel that?” he said. “Smooth as silk, and no drips when it’s turned off.” We had a real connection.
This morning, I noticed that the handle in my shower was a bit harder to turn. I may get a shot at redemption, at proving that I am much better at plumbing repairs than Pete Hegseth is at running the Department of Defense. It’s a low bar, after all.
As for Belle-A, I have since seen more of the show and decided that none of the young women on it would last a day on Two Chicks and a Hammer.
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